Swan Song
by aranenumenesse
Summary: The end, the beginning and the middle of a relationship. Rogan. AU.
1. The Sentinel

It was almost a daily occurrence. A woman would stumble out of Wolverine's room, screeching indignities, throwing things against the thick door that had closed right in front of her face. She'd cuss and swear for a good while, then get dressed and walk out of the mansion, never coming back. Few hours later Wolverine would saunter to lunch, looking well laid and pleased, but getting more and more anxious the closer the evening and the slowly darkening night crept. He'd take his bike and ride out to the city, returning with a different woman at the wee hours of dawn, and after few hours the cycle would start again.

It was the way of the things. His nature. Something he did. As well as disappeared altogether every now and then for days, weeks, even months only to return as unsociable and crude as ever. Talking only to professor Xavier. Answering only to him. Obeying only him. Giving wide berth to the other inhabitants of 'Charles Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters'.

"He's… He's a difficult person."

"… So rude."

"Scary."

"Impossible to work with."

"Filthy animal."

"Mean bastard."

"Selfish."

It was unsure if the man in question knew about less flattering adjectives that were used to describe him. But it was quite sure that even if he did know, he didn't care. On the contrary, he seemed to carry his repulsive aura like an armor. A shield to keep other people at arms length at every situation. And it was working. It was working so well, that it took everybody except the professor Xavier himself a full week to notice the fact that the Wolverine was returned from his latest run to north with a live package. A girl of unknown age, with mutation that they could only keep guessing of.

Girl would sit out in the garden, on a bright patch of sunlight, just observing students as they went around in their business. Wolverine would stand close by, almost as if he were some sort of sentinel. Silent, gloomy guardian thrust upon the fragile looking girl, his dark eyes scanning everything and everybody getting within the invisible perimeter surrounding the girl. Moving only when the girl moved, moving only enough to keep the proper distance, stopping immediately when she stopped. His nostrils flaring slightly when somebody dared to breach the invisible barrier and approach the girl, who appeared to be every bit as antisocial and withdrawn as her guardian. Never speaking. Never bothering to acknowledge that there was a person right in front of her.

"Poor child…"

"Difficult."

"Withdrawn and distant."

"Scary."

"A mystery."

"Ever wonder what goes on between those two when the lights go out?"

Inevitable question that would pop out every now and then. Wolverine wasn't running. He wasn't riding in to town and dragging back random women. There was exactly one woman in his life, sharing his room, who knew, maybe sharing his bed as well. And the woman in question seemed to be more a child in every possible aspect. Withdrawn, silent, scared, numb, maybe deaf and dumb… Only one who didn't seem to be bothered with the situation, not curious or uncomfortable, was professor Xavier. Professor Xavier who still kept his daily council with Wolverine, now plus the girl in question.

There were mornings when Wolverine looked worn and haggard, his face pale and ashen. There were mornings when his hands shook. There were mornings when he and the girl didn't come out from their shared room at all before sun was high on the sky, children were out, and they could sneak in to the kitchen in complete silence.

There were mornings when the girl looked worn and haggard, her face pale and ashen. There were mornings when her whole body shook, trembling like a leaf in the wind. There were mornings when she and Wolverine didn't come out from the room they shared at all, not before heavy and silvery moon was high on the sky.

"Weird."

"Creepy."

"I wonder why the professor lets this continue."

Eventually whispers and rumors faded. Co-existence of the girl and Wolverine continued. It became something expected. They were. You took a walk in the garden. She'd sit there. If you got too close, he'd move from the shadow closer to her, retreating as soon you retreated. He'd trail after her, always few steps behind, always alert, always keeping everybody at arms length from the girl and himself, as if they were leper.

They never seemed to speak with each other. Never seemed to touch each other. No interaction whatsoever between them, yet it looked almost as if he was her jealous lover, shooing off other possible suitors. Guarding his possession, his claim over the girl, cold and logical gleam in his dark eyes.

One morning changes that all.

She's walking across the front lawn, intent look on her face. She's going to somewhere. Wolverine at her heels his eyes darting back and forth between his charge and their surroundings. Suddenly she starts to run. Easy, light steps towards the forest lining the school's grounds. There's a smile on her face. She looks healthy. Normal. Carefree. Knees pumping up and down, hands spread wide to catch the wind, her face turned upwards to greet the sun. And she keeps running, looking almost as if she were going to laugh. Just as she's about to cross the tree line and embark in to the shadowy woods Wolverine who has been guarding her from surprisingly long distance lets a frown slip over a slight smile that has been ghosting over his features.

"Marie!"

One word barked with low, authoritative voice, and the girl stops. Turns towards Wolverine, looking as if she were going to protest. Instead of a word a loud gasp escapes from her lips and she crumbles to the ground, clutching her chest, her skin turning ashen and blue.

First one arriving to the scene, school doctor Jean Grey gets an angry order to keep her hands off from the girl as Wolverine gathers her limp form on his arms. Jean is about to protest when Scott Summers, one of the teachers arrives, and Wolverine all but attacks him, still cradling the lifeless girl against his chest.

Wolverine pushes through the crowd that's gathered to witness the scene, heading towards the main building, the grand mansion. From the distance they can see professor Xavier sitting at the front entrance, nodding to Wolverine as he passes his wheelchair.

That night everybody finds a reason to walk by the room Wolverine shares with the girl. Steps faltering, straying closer to the door. Ears straining to catch even the slightest whisper. And there's none. Just a complete, heavy silence.

"A wife?"

"A daughter?"

"A friend?"

"A lover?"

"Just a girl he picked up from the road. Cancer. Extremely sensitive skin. Mute. Blind. But she could borrow Wolverine's senses, could siphon them in to her through touching him."

Next morning finds unmoving sentinel, standing beside a fresh grave, few feet away from the disturbed dirt, watching as the first rays of sun fall to the dark brown soil.


	2. It Begins

He had found the girl from a back room of a fight bar. Lonely figure sitting on a stool in the corner, swathed in heavy layers of cotton and denim even when it was near roasting inside. She had just sat there, huddled, staring dumbly off to distance when he had stumbled in with the conquest of that night, a woman who had seen her better days several years ago.

Generally he wasn't a shy person. Modesty was something he had rarely gotten taste of, and usually found it needless. It didn't occur to him to inquire about the girl before he was fucking the bleached old hag he had snagged from behind the cash register just before the MC announced the cage closed for tonight.

"Who's she?"

"Never mind about that. It's blind and mute. And a mutie on top of that all."

"I didn't ask what she is. I asked who she is?"

Blonde hadn't been in the mood for playing twenty questions. She had had an entirely different game in her mind. He had been more than willing to comply, his cock hardened to almost painful proportions from the beating he had taken and given in the cage. He had fucked the blonde on top of a rickety table, the girl sitting in the corner unmoving, never reacting, not even when the blonde hag came screaming and wailing so hard that he thought he was going to be deaf for the rest of the evening.

"You mind if I take her with me?"

"Huh?"

"The girl. You mind if I take her with me?"

"What girl… Oh, Rogue. How much?"

"How much for what?"

"How much is she worth for you?"

He had bought the girl from the hag he had been boning for a price that would have gotten him two beers back in the bar. He had closed the fly of his jeans and buckled his belt, all the while staring at the girl who seemed to stare right back at him with those unmoving eyes, never even blinking.

"Time to get going, darling."

He frowned before remembering. Blind. He stepped closer and laid his palm on her shoulder. The girl let out a strangled moan, noise coming somewhere deep inside of her chest rather than from her throat and mouth, trying to twist away from his hold and nearly falling off from the rickety stool.

"You're coming with me. My name is Logan. I'm going to take care of you."

Words spoken with utter conviction. Later on, when he looked back, remembering that moment, he'd frown and then smile little hesitantly. Take care of her? There had been nothing to take care of. The nature had already taken care of everything, leaving the people surrounding the girl the mere task of observing, staying out of her reach and hoping that she'd be comfortable.

He had thrown her over his shoulder. She had been screaming all the way through the bar. Just screaming as he trudged through the crowd, screaming with that bird-like voice of hers. Not moving. Not struggling. And eventually she had stopped even screaming. When he had sat on his bike, intending to hoist the girl behind him he had found the reason for her sudden silence. She had passed out. Face pale, black and blue from places her skin and touched his shoulder and back.

He had gotten off the bike, cradling the unconscious girl on her arms as she was spun from glass. Walked to a nearby motel and paid a room for the night.

He had placed the girl to the bed, then proceeded to wrap off layers of cloth from her, peeling her as if he were stripping bare a rosebud, pedal after another, until she had lain nude, and he was able to see the damage he had done just by touching her. Angry purple and yellow, fading to green and blue, distinctive shape of his fingers and palms, rounded blotches from his shoulder marring the porcelain that had been hiding underneath denim and cotton. And he hadn't been able to resist. He had traced one especially dark bruise running from her shoulder, down her collarbone, ending between her barely developed breasts. He had felt sudden tingling that had nothing to do with anything than the basest of reactions, survival. Every nerve and fiber in him screaming to not to touch her. She'd burn him; consume him completely if he let that happen. And when she suddenly opened her eyes, sharp and lucid gaze zeroing in to his rather muddled from too many beers he felt like it wouldn't be a bad thing. Not a bad thing to end his days.

For a long moment she had just stared at him, questioning look on her face. Then she had sat up slowly, not even noticing her undressed state before she had brought up her delicate right hand, intending to cup his bearded cheek.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I wasn't going to hurt you."

He had wracked his mind in vain, trying to come up with a plausible reason for why he had seen it fit to take her with him. And there was none. No reason at all. Except that he had gotten curious. So he took her hand that still hovered hesitantly in the air and brought it on his cheek, pressing her palm flat against his skin. Felt the pull. Saw her eyes getting clearer. Felt his own vision and hearing falling strangely numb, muted.

Rest of the night he spend on the bed, on his back, following the girl with his murky gaze as she went around in the room, listening even the smallest of cracks and creaks, stopping to stare at a cockroach crawling over shabby carpet and just staring out from the window, her face lifted so that she could see the stars above.

Next morning his decision was made. He could smell the disease in her, sickening stench of approaching death. But she seemed satisfied, even happy now that she could see and hear. He'd take her home. At least he could offer her something more than a rickety stool at the back of a dingy fight bar.


	3. Project Swallow

She was his pet project. Tiny, untouchable scrap of death.

Of course he had done the right thing. Contacted Xavier ASAP, asking him if he knew any reliable oncologist who wouldn't mind about the fact that the patient at hand happened to be a mutant. He had wasted considerable amount of cold, hard cash, and little time to get the fact that he already knew written to a paper. The girl was indeed dying. There was nothing that could be done, except to keep her comfortable during the last stage of the disease that had settled in to her and dug it's roots deep in to her fragile body.

"You do realize that she's a child? A human with emotions and feelings?"

"Cut the crap, Xavier. I'm going to take care of her."

"Yes. Yes. I have no doubts about your sincerity. But please, do remember to thread carefully. And remember, Wolverine… Nobody, not even you can fool the reaper."

There were nights when he laid awake in his bed, listening her soft and even breathing echoing from the silken cradle that hung from the ceiling in front of the window, cursing her mutation that was willing to steal his secondary gift of enhanced senses, but stubbornly refused to suck his healing power in to her dying flesh.

There were days he cursed the Gods he didn't even believe to begin with for straddling such a pixie with something as heinous and vile as a cancer.

Then there were nights and days when he was able to sit back and observe, concentrate to his chosen task. Keep listening her body as it slowly but inevitably wound down. Keep watching her as she kept watching the world through his borrowed eyes, trying to gauge her feelings and thoughts through her reactions that she so rarely let to surface.

"What is her name?"

"The woman she lived with called her 'Rogue'. She doesn't seem to like it that much. I have started calling her Marie."

"Marie? May I ask what prompted you to…"

"She likes that name."

She seemed to like her new name almost as much as the shots of morphine he kept injecting in to her when it started to look like she was in pain. He tried not to do that too often. She'd get cloudy-eyed and start swaying back and forth, small, incoherent murmur echoing from her chest, and corner of her mouth twitching to something resembling a crooked smile.

He knew they were curious. Every single one of them just aching to find out everything and anything there was to know about her. He preferred to keep them in darkness. It wasn't their business. If he let one person in, that one person would drag the next one, and before he knew, Jean would whisk the girl away from him and lock her in to the infirmary for the rest of her days, heavily medicated and sedated for her own good. Jean Summers wasn't a bad person, but that was the doctor's approach on to things, and first and foremost she was a doctor.

"She… She looks happy. I trust things are going well?"

"Yeah."

Happy? He didn't know if she were happy or sad, or just plain bored, but she smelt okay, and every now and then there was this strange, watery gleam in her eyes and soft, purring sound inside her chest, especially when she saw something he knew she liked. Perhaps she was happy.

And the stench of death kept escalating from day to day. He could already smell it through her clothes, heavy protective pieces that were padded from the inside and lined with the same silk from which her cradle was spun, lightweight but strong web of giant arachnid.

It was an interesting experience to follow the approach of the reaper. To listen the small click-clack of his bony heels, see the small, barely visible flashes of cold and sharp blade as it kept slicing her life off as if she was been pealed as an onion. Never had he seen the death this close and detailed. The slow but certain process of oxidation, until one day blood red rust would clog up the whole delicately designed piece of machinery created from flesh and bone.

"I'm worried about you, Wolverine."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Do you? You're wasting your resources to a girl who's going to die anyway. You have no way of knowing if these transfers are harmful…"

"Fuck you, Xavier. She's my responsibility. I'd know if she was hurting because of this."

"It's not the girl I'm worried about…"

"It's good to know that you care for her that much."

It was hard. There were mornings when he didn't felt like getting up at all. The girl seemed to be satisfied with that, just sitting in her cradle that spin restlessly around and around in front of the open window, staring at the swallows that kept soaring in the air outside. And he kept staring at the girl through his lowered lashes, trying once more to settle wading through the day with dulled senses just so she could see the goddamned birds.

Sitting cross-legged in the netted cradle, her small fingers curled around the silvery strands of silken ropes she looked every bit worth of sacrificing a small proportion of himself even perhaps permanently. She'd only need wings from the swallows and she'd been good and ready to go.


	4. Siva

When she fell his mind was still reeling from the radiant smile she had granted to the world just few seconds earlier. First thought that flickered through his mind when her arms flopped down and her face twisted to a grimace wasn't one born from relief as he had often pictured it to be. No.

He wanted to scream out his rage and anger, lash out and tear to shreds anything, anybody getting too close. It wasn't supposed to happen now. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He felt disappointed. Cheated. He had played with poor hand, and reaper had called his bluff.

"Fuck off, Jean. There's nothing you can do."

He forced his voice to stay calm and level, but couldn't stop the enraged growl rupturing from his chest when Scott approached, seemingly intending to block his chosen path. His bared teeth snapped once, sharply, just few inches from the other man's face forcing him to retreat in fear of loosing the tip of his nose.

The girl weighed next to nothing. He could already see the angry bruise forming on her pale cheek, born from when she fell on her face to the green grass.

His feet weighed like led. His whole body felt like it had suddenly gained tons of extra matter, pulling him down to the ground. He grit his teeth together, small muscles on his cheeks twitching and forced his back straight, keeping his gaze locked to the grand entrance of the main building where professor Xavier sat on his wheelchair, knowing, yet pained look on his face.

"I warned you…"

Quiet whisper followed him through the heavy oak doors. Yes. Professor had warned him. Countless of times during their numerous discussions professor Xavier had addressed the issue with his usual, roundabout way, telling long tales about beloved pet dogs and cats. Had even told him to avoid getting any more involved with the girl than what he already was.

"For a telepath you sure are dense…"

Only sturdy stone walls heard Wolverine's retort as he took the stairs to the second floor. It didn't matter. The girl didn't matter. What mattered was that the reaper had cheated. And nobody cheated the Wolverine. Nobody.

He had lived practically without his enhanced senses for the last few days, but every now and then he managed to get a whiff from her scent. The bitter, acrid taste of decay wafting in his nose and mouth, telling him that it wouldn't take long anymore. Not long. But longer than this. She should have been good for at least few more days. He had had it all planned and ready. Wake her up early; give her a dose of his senses, then a brief ride on his bike to a nearby lake. Something she hadn't seen before. Seagulls that came in from the sea, even few albatrosses if they were lucky. She could have sat there on a blanket for the rest of the day and drift off as he kept dosing the morphine to keep her from noticing the end that would have been sneaking nearer.

He laid her on his bed, not risking her to go to rigor mortis in the spun cradle. Sat on the edge of the bed and just stared at her for a moment, drinking in her features that looked for the first time fully relaxed. Raised his hand to wipe off few strands of hair from her forehead and cringed when the tips of his fingers scraped against her skin, leaving blackened traces at their wake. And felt the tingling.

Except it wasn't just tingling now. It was burning. Scorching his veins as it crept forward, finding every nook and cranny in him, spreading rapidly towards his heart that started stuttering and coughing, convulsing in him as if it was trying to escape right through his chest from the threat that was approaching fast as he laid his bare palm over her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open. Her lips parted to a soundless scream, her whole body trashing and convulsing uncontrollably. It was working. His mutation was flooding her, healing her as he himself started to sag, his head falling against his chest and his eyes snapping tightly shut. It was working. Finally.

"You won't have her!"

He bared his teeth and snarled his threat to a dark, hooded figure standing at the side of the bed, not knowing whether it really was there or if it was a hallucination. Figure faded slowly as the girl drained him, leaving him to a heap on the bed and standing up, wicked smile on her face. And he knew. Knew what he had to do, because it had worked too well.

"I think I'll finish you off later. For now I have some other plans…"

She turned her back on him, shedding her clothes from layer after layer as she kept walking towards the door he had left unlocked because he had thought he wouldn't have to lock it this time.

He leaped from the floor with a mighty roar, his claws tearing their way out through his knuckles, diving through her back and stopping her from leaving the room. Stopping her from consuming the world in her hunger.


End file.
